Elton John has said stars are scared to speak out against war in Iraq because of “bullying tactics” used by the US government to hinder free speech. Expect the anti-Elton backlash to commence immediately. Fortunately, as a British subject he’s relatively immune. Unfortunately, in reality this probably means that future concerts in any “red” states will shortly be cancelled. The story doesn’t mention the recent pink slip Whoopi Goldberg received from Slim-Fast for daring to make an anti-Bush and anti-Dick joke at a recent Democratic fund-rasier. Goldberg accepted the company’s decision but said she had criticised presidents of all persuasions.…
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Lifestyle guru Martha Stewart has been sentenced to five months in jail and five months of house arrest over charges of conspiracy and obstruction. Excuse me, you misspelled “convicted felon Martha Stewart”. It’s the criminal version of winning an Oscar and getting to add “Academy Award(TM)winning” to your name in the billing of a new movie, if you’re an actor or actress who has been so honored by the Academy. Hee hee – I wonder if the people she trampled in her rush to fame as America’s Lifestyle Guru are also savoring the piquant, yet satisfying mouthfeel of “convicted felon…
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Miss Alli‘s recaplet is up for the second TAR episode, which includes many excellent things (both the mini-recap and the episode): The race moves to Argentina, and things kick into high gear. Marshall and Lance blow their brilliant plan to publicize their restaurant to their enormous advantage by muttering about “useless foreigners,” Charla and Mirna learn that prostitutes are busy, and Jim and Marsha learn that you should always do your own research. After an excellent detour involving mysterious tango dancers and horny dogs, Alison and Donny make the classic mistake of taking a bus instead of a taxi, and…
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The Banadir hospital in Mogadishu will provide free health care for women and children. It has been mostly financed by Somali businessmen. This is a second hospital in Mogadishu – the SOS hospital was the one that closed temporarily due to death threats against one of the doctors for performing a hysterectomy.
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Yesterday, a chance comment of mine after hearing a piece on :NPR gave David a mind virus for the day; he had Ravel’s “Bolero” stuck on repeat in his head. This morning, WXRT was doing their Friday preview for Saturday Morning Flashback with the time machine/wormhole schtick, and today the chosen year was 1984. The opening notes to Nena’s “99 Red Balloons” floated out of the car speakers, and on autopilot my hand reached out to turn the volume up. Good times. Tried to sing along, but it was the English version and I wanted to sing the chorus in…
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I’ve come late to the party, but finally started reading Adam Curry‘s weblog via Bloglines. Today, he announces a new community watch program, after noting that the Dutch government (he lives in Holland) still does not have a terror alert system complete with colors. Our own government provides this useful service; I’m thinking about installing the Muppets one so as to feel simultaneously paranoid and soothed. Anyway, Adam Curry’s idea was hatched on his morning radio show. And thus the Terror Information Tracking Service was born. You send an SMS (text message from GSM ) from your cellphone to our…
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SALT LAKE CITY – Two men planning to throw lighted fireworks from a car were burned when they forgot to roll down the window. Duh.
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Maybe it’s breaking at last: Boing Boing reports via various blog links that Seymour Hersh is going somewhat more public with the assertion that children were raped at Abu Ghraib, and that the Pentagon has the videos. There’s a lot of discussion out there on the Net – see the comments sections of the blogs linked by BoingBoing. I would still like to know whatever happened to the story of the Titan contractor that was accused of raping a teenage boy that was reported on back in May on :NPR’s Marketplace.
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I was listening to AAR – Majority Report just now for the first time in a while, and happened on an interesting discussion with George Lakoff, author of Moral Politics : How Liberals and Conservatives Think. It’s very interesting. He proposes that political views can be categorized by two family archetypes, the Strict Father and the Nurturing Parent. As he spoke listing the attributes and belief systems of each model, it made our current political system of dysfunctional polarism sound more and more like Family Feud. There’s a lot more about how to take back control of the national debate…
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The 2004 Emmy nominations were announced: TAR is up for four of them: Cinemetographym, Editing, Sound Mixing, and Outstanding Reality-Competition Program. And hey! Futurama got a few nods, too. Wish it hadn’t been cancelled, but maybe there’s hope for it yet.